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Dr. Alan Cecil Petigny, 1965-2013

The Department of History mourns the loss of Dr. Alan Petigny, friend, colleague, and former student. He died unexpectedly of natural causes at his home at the end of September. He had been a member of the history faculty at UF since 2000.

The son of West Indian immigrants, Dr. Petigny grew up in Tampa. He graduated with honors from the University of South Florida in 1992, subsequently earned awards as a reporter for public radio, and worked as a policy analyst for the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee.

In the early 1990s, Dr. Petigny entered graduate school in history at UF. He transferred to Brown University, where he earned an MA in 1995 and the PhD in 2003. In 2009, Cambridge University Press published his influential first book, The Permissive Society: America, 1941-1965. Historian Stephen Whitfield praised Dr. Petigny’s scholarship: “With freshness of perspective, deftness of design, and ingenuity of research, he proposes to find in the 1950s the seeds of the democratic change associated with the 1960s—and thus makes both decades more intriguing.”

In 2010, the university granted Dr. Petigny tenure and promoted him to associate professor. He taught popular classes on American social and intellectual history, the 1950s, and the Sixties.

The date of a departmental memorial for Dr. Petigny will be announced.

*Editor’s note: The original post incorrectly gave 1970 as the year of Dr. Petigny’s birth.

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10 thoughts on “Dr. Alan Cecil Petigny, 1965-2013”

The Board of Directors and members of the University of Florida Association of Black Alumni (UF ABA) extend our condolences to the family and colleagues of Dr. Petigny. Alumni always recall a key moment or special encounter with administrators, faculty, and staff. UF’s black alumni will be thinking about his family and co-workers as you mourn his passing.

I knew Alan during his days as a student at the University of South Florida. I was working on a MA in History at USF at the time. We had many conversations about history and historiography and I was so pleased to see him pursue a doctorate. I also knew of his great work with WUSF-FM. He did many segments for the NPR station in the Tampa Bay region during the early 1990s, and they were always of the highest quality. He will be missed.

I knew Alan since high school and he was an absolutely outstanding person. He loved UF and teaching students more than anything else. He had an absolute passion for history and was truly a person that I am honored to have known and call my friend. I extend my deepest condolences to his colleagues and his family. He
loved you all.

What shocking, saddening news. Alan was charming, funny and very sharp. His book makes a genuine contribution to the understanding of postwar American society and culture. I saw him only once in the classroom, when he gave a guest lecture in a seminar I offer at Brandeis on the culture of the Cold War. He showed a gift for engaging with the undergraduates that was truly impressive. May Alan’s memory be for a blessing.

I was writing Dr. Petigny an email the other day to ask for a letter of recommendation to send to prospective grad schools. Once I had it drafted I googled his name to make sure I had his current email address. I was stunned in disbelief when my eyes came to focus on “Dr. Alan Cecil Petigny, 1965-2013.” What sad news.

I only took one class with Dr. Petigny–American Exceptionalism, in 2007. His warmth and sincerity was immediate, as were his formidable mind and communicative skills; the combination of these traits made for a wonderful teacher and scholar.

I took that class over a summer between semesters at the state’s eccentric liberal-arts college, which I think he found charming, that I didn’t “have to be” doing it. (He was familiar with New College because it was a unit of USF while he was studying there). One day he asked me to drop by his office after class. I did, not knowing what in particular he’d want to discuss. He asked me if I’d considered pursuing history beyond the undergraduate level. I told him, vaguely and probably unconvincingly, that I had thought about possibly doing a masters. He was the first person that encouraged me to look beyond that, to contemplate doing a PhD and seeing history as a viable career path.

So writing Dr. Petigny was more than an instrumental thing; it was a recognition that he’d made a major positive imprint upon me. Although the course I took with him was brief it made, as I was telling him in the email, a lasting impression. And though I was under his tutelage for a brief time I consider him a mentor. One of the things that most galvanized me about the grad school process was seeking out Dr. Petigny’s wisdom, and perhaps sensing that him feeling proud that one of his former students’ was striving to advance himself.

A couple years after I took the course at UF I got a call from a Tampa-area number I didn’t recognize. It was Dr. Petigny, checking to see what I’d been up to and what my plans ahead were, encouraging me to get involved with the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program if I made it to Gainesville. (After we talked I recalled that he asked students at the beginning of his course to write their contact infomation on a 3×5.) He called again about a year later, telling me about his time on sabbatical in Princeton, and asking what I’d been up to. I unfortunately lost touch with him after this but always kept loose plans to see if he’d want to grab lunch in Gainesville on my way from New Orleans to Sarasota or back.

The world feels more bereft without Dr. Petigny. I feel the best way to memorialize him is to steep kindness into my work, be it teaching or whatever, and to examine my own perspective in the light of understanding the past growing into the present. May you rest in peace, Dr. Petigny.